Worst Costume Experiences?

Wow, some pretty awesome (and also some pretty horrific ) stories here. I've never been to a con, but I'm going to a local one this Saturday. I'm going as Ezio, though, so I don't expect to encounter any costume-related problems there.

...Although if I do, hopefully it'll make a great story that I can share with whoever might be interested in reading the woes of others here.

Just found this thread and had to share my worst experience. It wasn't at a convention, it took place at my elementary school.

When I was about ten (I'm sixteen now), my mom made me a McDonalds French fries costume out of some foam and an old inflatable mattress. I loved it and was really happy to wear it at school. We weren't allowed to wear our costumes until lunch time so my mom came at lunch to help me put it on. I was walking with one of my friends when he jokingly told me that he was going to eat me so I laughed and started running away from him. I guess some kid must have yelled or something because I looked over at the playground and saw kids jumping off of it to come chase me. I was quite overweight then (still kind of am ) and couldn't run for very long. I stopped running and within about 30 seconds I was surrounded by what seemed to me like a thousand kids (probably closer to a hundred).

I was kind of freaking out at that point because I could feel the people closest to me grabbing at the foam fries and pushing me.

When the supervisors finally got all the kids off of me, I saw several foam fries laying on the ground around me. The costume wasn't really wrecked as it only took my mom about 20 minutes to fix it when I got home, but I was still really angry and avoided my friend for the rest of the lunch hour.

I'm a lot more careful with my costumes and props now because the majority of people at my school have no respect for other people's property. When I bring props to school for Drama or the like, I keep them in a garbage bag so people won't see them and try to wreck them.

At least I got a good story out of that experience

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I haven't had any really bad experiences cosplaying, but for both my cosplays at Ohayocon this year I wore wigs which gave me terribly awful headaches the entire time. It felt like my skull was slowly being crushed. The pain even spread to my mouth, giving me toothaches as well. I vowed never to do a costume that requires a wig again after that.

Being in my finals week of college, I really don't think there is a better stress relief out there than these stories. I haven't laughed this hard in a while. :lol

I appreciate your pain.

I spent 10 years slowly acquiring pieces for and building my Batman: Gotham by Gaslight costume. When it was finally done, I wore it once and was so unhappy/miserable in it, that I doubt I'll ever wear it again.

The shirt didn't come out right, the collar on the cape didn't stand-up the way it was supposed to and the cowl was uncomfortable and a pain in the ass to put on and take off. Once I gave up and took it off, I refused to put it back on.

I was attending a Dr Who Convention in Manchester UK and was happily having a trundle entertaining the crowds inside my Dalek, voice blasting, lights flashing, surrounded by about 100 delighted attendees , families, lots of screaming kids etc Through my ( very ) limited vision I decided to scarily advance on one particular family with a little kid who was very excited, suddenly, he slipped over and as I tried to 'brake' - these Daleks are foot powered-, I saw a tiny pair of legs and shoes appear INSIDE the Dalek, underneath the rubber skirt on the base,. I'd inadvertently run him over!
His Mum and dad pulled him back and I thought the shouting crowd would drag me out and lynch me, instead they all cheered and seemed ecstatic at the Daleks evil treatment of the little boy.... phew.....

Once at a con I had a woman try to lift my kilt - asking if I was "regimental". It was mostly just surprising and annoying at the time, but once I thought about it later, I realized just how inappropriate that was. Imagine flipping the genders around and what if some dude had tried to lift some random girl's skirt. Think about it ...

But later that day, a different woman (who turned out to be a friend of a friend) came up to me and told me how great she thought my kilt was, and asked me if I'd made it (I had) and gave me a pin that says "Real men wear kilts!".

I spent a few months making a Captain Jack Sparrow costume, and my high school students convinced me to enter it into the lunchtime costume contest. I was beyond proud of this costume and just couldn't wait to show it off to everyone. A few days before the big day I was cutting across campus and I fell off of a two foot drop onto the concrete and just ruined my ankle. I couldn't put weight on it, it swelled up to the size of a softball, and the incident happened right in front of the whole school. I was convinced Halloween was a bust.

Cut to a few days later when I'd taken enough painkillers to believe that I could handle a full day of work in costume without my foot being able to touch the ground for even a second. My father drove me to work in costume (I'm 35 years old. Dignity!). One of the clerks in an office near my classroom offered to push me on a rolling desk chair completely across campus and down three floors to the contest. I managed to keep myself together long enough to win the contest and ride all the way back to my classroom fighting back pain-tears. By the time I got home my ankle looked like a mutated eggplant.

Horrible? Yes. Worth it? Oh my god yes. I've been told by a few kids that they signed up for my animation and computer graphics classes because of my costume, and they're still asking me what I'm going to make for next year.

Here's a sweet photo of me getting a ride to work from my very generous, patient, understanding father. This photo was pre stubble, eyebrows, and a second coat of eyeliner:

Mine so far aren't really that bad, more annoying. Finally finished my helmet from Repo! The Genetic Opera and it fit and worked perfectly at home. But take it to Dragon*Con in the Gerorgia heat and it is all of the sudden a size too big (WTF? did my head shrink? Probably just the sweat) and the LEDs kept flickering like a damn disco an inch from my eyes. The second one was a shoe mishap with my Jane from Disney's Tarzan costume, again at Dragon*Con. Yet another, fit fine at home, but the heat mixed with boots that were probably just a tad too old to wear and massive amounts of con walking left my foot bleeding by the end of our photoshoot at the Sheraton and then having to limp back to the Hilton with a bloody foot in white tights. And spending the rest of the weekend with multiple band-aids on my poor foot. Learned my lesson and those boots didn't make it home with me and a new pair was bought when I got home.

WonderCon 2011, I had spent about 3 months working on my first ever costume, and I thought that I had spent adequate time testing it out to make sure that everything worked well together, and for the most part i had very little problems with everything. Unfortunately I had failed to take into account how I would feel after walking around for multiple days in the armor. Halfway through day two I could no longer lift my right arm because the back armor constantly pressed down on some nerve in my shoulder.

Fast forward to August of 2012, I and a group of friends decided to crash a local car show in costume (we figured why not, so away we went). I was in the Version 2 of my WonderCon gear, and had worked out most, if not all the problems my first set of armor had. So whilst walking around I can honestly say I had no issues with pain whatsoever. I did however, nearly give myself heatstroke. You see, I was wearing full black, layered armor...midday, in August...in NEVADA!!! It was at least 100 degrees that day, and I was in a fully enclosed costume. I must have had 20 people ask me "Aren't you hot in there?", to which my only reply was "You have no frelling idea!". I ended up walking through a sprinkler fountain surrounded by kids just to cool off. Last time I ever step foot out of an air conditioned convention venue for more than 5 minutes.

This thread is like crack to me. I love hearing all these horror stories lol

Did a WW2 display in Atlanta in August, with a B-17 bomber. I volunteered to wear all the gear a gunner would wear. Wore wool uniform, wool flight suit, a2 leather jacket, gloves, heated flying suit, life vest, parachute, leather helmet, goggles, mask, flak helmet and flak vest. That all weighed probably over 100 pounds. And it was about 90 degrees outside. While I have been hotter in other places (in the army, wearing 'MOPP' chem suits), I've never been more uncomfortable while suppodely having 'fun'.

Looch said:

My screen accurate Snake Eyes and all my perfectly constructed Cobra buddies lost out to race car driver Jeff Gordon and his buddies dressed as the Reservoir Dogs-suits and sunglasses!

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Many of us have had that. Contests go for what looks cool to the audience, not who put the most effort into it. I lost a Halloween, contest once in my complete USAF jet fighter pilot outfit (all correct, flight suit, g suit, ejection seat harness, gloves, helmet, O2 mask, the works) to a girl in a cat outfit that cost her maybe $10 and took 5 minutes to put together. Remember the early BBT halloween episode where Penny was dresssed as a cat? The girl look like that and won.

robinhood jw said:

Once at a con I had a woman try to lift my kilt - asking if I was "regimental". It was mostly just surprising and annoying at the time, but once I thought about it later, I realized just how inappropriate that was. Imagine flipping the genders around and what if some dude had tried to lift some random girl's skirt. Think about it ...
.

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This happened to me once at a wedding (I was filling in for a night with a Celtic band that was playing there). She wanted to find out if I was regimental. I was. As most of that wedding party found out.

AJTaliesen said:

This happened to me once at a wedding (I was filling in for a night with a Celtic band that was playing there). She wanted to find out if I was regimental. I was. As most of that wedding party found out.

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I was at a Napoleonic battle re-enactment, portraying a Highland infantryman, in a British square, defending against French cavalry. We unhorsed several chasseurs with our first volley, and one went down about 5 feet from us kneeling in the front rank. He looked over, saw what was (and in most cases, wasn't) under the kilts and I heard one yell over and over in a French accent, "It's true... IT'S TRUE!"

While I've never had it as bad as a few people here, I've learned a LOT from the few costumes I have done.

With Naked Snake, I learned that even though people won't see it, a belt can be VERY important. The first time I went out in Snake with my full harness, I didn't think about wearing a normal belt with the pants, because they had stayed up STABO was going to be there riding up my crotch and holding things up, right? Wrong. About halfway through the day, something felt funny around my hips. It was air. The adjustable pull tabs had decided to just give up on my BDU pants and start sagging as I walked around. I spent the rest of the con yanking up my pants like I was Matt Foley (Van down by a river anyone?) I have never gone without a belt since.

Protoman has caused a few scars, but nothing as bad as some of the ones here. Thankfully that costume has taught me a LOT about making sure I get things ready and comfortable BEFORE I take it out to a con. The first time I wore it I learned the difference between HIGH and LOW temp hot glue. Almost 90* September days made half the joints on the boots come apart while walking outside. The next time I had fiberglassed the boots, but I didn't realize how much the foam had flexed and stretched to accomadate my knees, so by the end of the day both of my knees were pretty bruised up. Thankfully I was wearing some heavy work pants so they couldn't rub through and cut into my knees. Interestingly enough it's the gauntlet that's done the most damage. After I glassed all the armor parts, I didn't realize how tight the gauntlet would be. It hadn't been too much of an issue other than bruising the area where my thumb meets the wrist, but the last time I wore it, the fiberglass chewed through the side of my glove and started to chew through my hand. My hand was so swolen that it took 2 of my friends to pull the glove/gauntlet off of my arm. I still have a small dark scar to remind me to redo that gauntlet before I wear Proto again.


20140301_193739 by RoninsArt, on Flickr


20140304_095046 by RoninsArt, on Flickr
That was a couple days afterward.

For halloween one year I did a cheap Ash Williams (Evil Dead) costume. I spent a month building (a not that good) chainsaw arm. Halloween came and It fell apart faster than you can say "OH CRAP".

Getting chunked through the air on an air ramp at a Make-A-Wish event. I was Shocker fighting Spider-Man and I was supposed to be tossed through the air. They set the pressure too high and I was sent flying over the landing bags. I ended up with a concussion and separated collar bone. Top it off, I was kicked in the crotch by one of the kids at the event because "I was a bad guy."

Well, for a convention I dressed up as Ramona from Scott Pilgrim and had this huuuge hammer... The convention was so packed that I ended up hitting everybody's head with the hammer xD! I was trying my best not to though xD

Grifter2013 said:

Getting chunked through the air on an air ramp at a Make-A-Wish event. I was Shocker fighting Spider-Man and I was supposed to be tossed through the air. They set the pressure too high and I was sent flying over the landing bags. I ended up with a concussion and separated collar bone. Top it off, I was kicked in the crotch by one of the kids at the event because "I was a bad guy."

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That is a seriously bad day. You're probably lucky those were the only major injuries. I've seen people end up in wheelchairs from stupid mistakes like that.

The Ronin said:

That is a seriously bad day. You're probably lucky those were the only major injuries. I've seen people end up in wheelchairs from stupid mistakes like that.

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Yeah I braced for impact so the damage wasn't as bad. Was gunshy about doing charity work until a few years after. Now I'm going to be doing essentially the same thing all over again with some Spider-Man villain suits. Should be fun.